Anorexia - causes, symptoms, treatment, consequences

Signs of anorexia

The disease can be recognized by the following signs:

1. A person's weight is less than normal.
2. Fear of weight gain, which sometimes causes a person to behave absurdly during meals. Thus, patients can even count the number of grains of rice in their plate.
3. Weigh yourself frequently throughout the day.
4. Counting calories and other rituals related to weight loss take up all my free time. A person constantly limits himself in food.
5. Dissatisfaction with one's weight and obvious thinness.
6. Use of emetics or laxatives.
7. Frequent training, despite weakness.
8. Refusal of meat and fatty foods, gradual transition to fruits and vegetables.

In addition to the main symptoms of the disease, a person suffers from the following disorders:

• sleep disorder;
• general weakness;
• muscle spasms;
• the patient’s muscles become flabby and atrophy;
• pigment spots on the skin;
• sunken eyes;
• sunken stomach;
• tooth loss;
• dry hair;
• pallor;
• Bad mood;
• low pressure;
• menstrual irregularities in women;
• fainting and dizziness;
• vomiting, nausea and stomach pain.

The disease develops gradually. First, a person who is dissatisfied with his reflection in the mirror becomes convinced that he is overweight. Then he tries by any means to lose weight, even refusing to eat.

When the first results in weight loss are achieved, a person feels light and elated, which makes the negative consequences of disorders, such as brittle nails, dull skin and dry hair, invisible.

In addition to the fact that the patient limits food intake, he begins to actively engage in physical activity. This quickly exhausts the body. If the process lasts about a year, then the person already looks haggard. The patient needs urgent medical attention.

Stages of anorexia

Anorexia develops in several stages: dysmorphophobic, dysmorphomanic, cachectic.

Dysmorphophobic stage

Anorexia begins with the fear of being ridiculed or rejected by other people, deprivation of a desired goal due to being overweight. At the same time, ideas of completeness become a priority. The patient's mood decreases, he becomes preoccupied with other people's opinions and believes that those around him are only engaged in critically evaluating the patient, exchanging ridicule, glances, and condemning remarks.

Attempts to lose weight and limit intake of high-calorie foods begin. Losing weight is accompanied by regular weighings. At this stage, appetite persists, which leads to breakdowns after hunger strikes or late-night snacking. It is popular to cut food into very small pieces and consume it for a long time for the sake of satiation in smaller portions. The dysmorphophobic stage lasts on average 2-3 years.

Dysmorphomanic stage

A delusional belief appears about being overweight or overweight in certain areas (stomach, legs). Patients complain to others about their excessive fatness and look at themselves in the mirror for a long time. The idea of ​​the judgmental attitude of others disappears, depressive feelings decrease, and active attempts to correct the figure begin (proper nutrition, sports). Dissimulation manifests itself (concealing the refusal of food and the motives for this refusal from people around):

• they quietly throw away food, give it to others, pretend that they have eaten;
• spitting out or hiding food;
• they specially get a dog and give food to it;
• Before eating, the stomach is tightened with a tight belt (so that food does not pass through).

Anorexics often drink water instead of food and try not to eat in the presence of other people. Behavioral features similar to bulimia are noted: vomiting after eating, enemas (supposedly for weight loss). Patients prefer to do everything standing (more energy is spent) and exhaust themselves with physical exercise. Anorexics spend a maximum of 5-6 hours sleeping, and occupy uncomfortable positions.

To overcome weakness and drowsiness, as well as suppress hunger, drink a lot of coffee and tea, and smoke. By the way, the statement that smoking dulls hunger is one of the popular myths.

By the end of the stage, the obsession with losing weight is not hidden. On the contrary, anorexics are happy to discuss diets, weight loss techniques, and exercise routines. At the same time, patients often enjoy cooking, including for the whole family, and overfeed other people.

Cachectic stage

It can develop in parallel with other stages and is manifested by exhaustion. It sometimes becomes noticeable 1.5-2 years after the onset of anorexia.

Among the psychophysiological changes at this stage:

• involuntary vomiting after eating;
• loss of appetite;
• aversion to food;
• feeling full from saliva or toothpaste;
• loss of subcutaneous fat;
• muscle wasting;
• dryness and flaking of the skin;
• brittle nails;
• loss of teeth and hair;
• on the contrary, fluff and single long black hairs appear on the skin;
• decrease in pressure and temperature;
• diseases of the gastrointestinal tract (gastritis, atony);
• prolapse of internal organs;
• reverse development of the uterus and genitals;
• anemia;
• electrolyte imbalance, and as a result - seizures.

The attitude towards nutrition is further deteriorated due to pain, discomfort and heaviness in the abdomen (gastrointestinal diseases). Due to somatic disorders, hypochondria develops. Often anorexics start going to doctors, trying to correct somatic disorders and avoiding the true cause (anorexia) and working with a psychiatrist.

Patients can lose up to half their body weight, but still see themselves as fat in the mirror. Although attempts to lose weight often stop at this stage, the goal is to maintain weight, but the fear of gaining weight remains.

Causes of anorexia

The causes of anorexia can be both psychological disorders and the effects of medications.

As for psychological disorders, the following factors can trigger the development of the disease:

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One of the main causes of anorexia nervosa is a lack of acceptance of one's body. Girls in adolescence are increasingly prone to this. The second reason is a conflict with parents, strained relationships in the family, resentment and careless statements about the child’s appearance. All this pushes the teenager to take drastic measures.

Anorexia can be triggered by taking medications. This pathology involves the loss of the feeling of hunger, and this can happen either intentionally or as a result of treatment for a disease.

If we are talking about deliberately muffling the feeling of hunger, then this is achieved by taking certain medications. Anorexia can be triggered by taking antidepressants or other stimulants.

How depression can lead to anorexia and bulimia

Home»Articles»How depression can lead to anorexia and bulimia

Published: December 02, 2014 at 06:29

As is known, the connection between motivational disorders and depression is not accidental and has a certain biochemical basis: these disorders are caused by a violation of the metabolism of brain monoamines - serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine.

Violation of food motivation

A person’s eating behavior, which is defined as his taste preferences, diet, and diet, depends on cultural, social, family, emotional, affective and biological factors. Numerous studies have shown that when food is easily accessible, psycho-social factors become more important than energetic and biological factors.

Also, the prevailing social ideas about beauty, especially women’s, have a strong influence on eating behavior. In underdeveloped countries, a woman's dignity is plumpness. In developed countries, there is now a fashion for a slim figure, which forces many, especially young women, to resort to dieting in order to lose weight and become slimmer. These self-restraints, as a rule, do not indicate the presence of true eating disorders. True eating disorders are much less common and are caused not only by concern for one’s figure, but by a number of psychopathological conditions, including depression.

With depression, a decrease in appetite is more often observed, which is accompanied by a decrease in body weight. Anorexia and exhaustion so often accompany depression that they are considered one of its obligate signs and are included as criteria for diagnosing depression in almost all known questionnaires. Anorectic reactions in depression have a number of distinctive features. As a rule, not only is there a decrease in appetite or lack thereof, but often the food becomes tasteless or begins to cause disgust. Even the smell or sight of food can cause disgust. Such patients may experience a feeling of nausea and, less commonly, vomiting. Eating is not accompanied by pleasure; such patients eat because they need to eat or they are forced to eat. Loss of pleasure from eating is often combined with increased satiety, when the patient, after eating small amounts of food, feels a full stomach, a feeling of unpleasant heaviness, satiety, and nausea. Anorexia leads to a sharp reduction in the amount of food and weight loss.

Anorectic symptoms are closely related to the increase in other manifestations of depression and are most pronounced in the first half of the day. In some cases, they can be presented clearly and occupy a leading place in the clinical picture of the disease. In such patients, there is a need for differential diagnosis with anorexia nervosa. Anorexia nervosa mainly affects girls. The peak incidence occurs in adolescence and young adulthood.

The main signs of the disease are a decrease in body weight by more than 15% of the original, a painful conviction of one’s own fatness, even despite low weight, and amenorrhea. The basis of the disease is the desire to lose weight, which patients realize through diet, grueling exercise, and often enemas, laxatives and vomiting. About half of people with anorexia nervosa experience bouts of binge eating followed by binge eating. The patients themselves do not pay attention to weight loss and fatigue. Concerned relatives bring them to the doctor. The causes of anorexia nervosa are still little known; An important role appears to be played by hereditary factors, family traditions, and personal characteristics, including psychopathy.

Psychotherapy is widely used to treat anorexia in patients with depression. For pharmacological correction, antidepressants are used; in particular, it is known that TCAs can cause weight gain, apparently due to increased appetite. At the same time, in case of eating disorders such as emotional eating, these drugs often, on the contrary, reduce appetite. A decrease in food motivation and subsequent decrease in body weight are secondary to depression and in most cases go away on their own as depressive symptoms decrease. With depression, significant body weight deficiency rarely occurs, as with anorexia nervosa, and concomitant metabolic, severe endocrine, cardiovascular and other disorders that require special correction.

Increased appetite or bulimia can also accompany depression, although this is somewhat less common. As a rule, bulimia is combined with a lack or decrease in the feeling of satiety and leads to weight gain and obesity. The basis of overeating in patients with depression is not a feeling of hunger, but a state of emotional discomfort.

Patients eat in order to relieve a bad mood, get rid of melancholy, apathy, anxiety, and feelings of loneliness. This type of bulimia is called compulsive bulimia, bulimia without discharge, hyperphagic reaction to stress, emotional eating behavior, food drunkenness.

Eating disorders in depression

With depression, eating often remains the only form of behavior that brings positive emotions to the patient and reduces symptoms of depression. Often bulimia with depression is accompanied by drowsiness and hypersomnia.

The severity of emotional eating behavior can lead to a significant increase in body weight. Studies have shown that 60% of obese patients experience emotional eating, which in such patients is the main mechanism for weight gain. Emotional eating behavior is closely associated with depression and increased anxiety levels. A special type of emotional eating behavior is night eating. These patients wake up in the middle of the night, usually in the early morning hours, and cannot fall asleep without eating. An increase in appetite in such cases is not at all related to the amount of food eaten before bed or the feeling of hunger, but plays the role of a sedative and hypnotic. Such patients, as a rule, have night sleep disturbances and excess body weight characteristic of depression.

Biochemical studies conducted a little earlier made it possible to understand and explain why a number of foods can serve as a kind of cure for depression. With emotional eating behavior, when patients eat in order to improve their mood, reduce feelings of melancholy and apathy, they prefer easily digestible carbohydrate foods.

An increased intake of carbohydrates leads to hyperglycemia and, subsequently, hyperinsulinemia. In a state of hyperinsulinemia, the permeability of the blood-brain barrier to the amino acid tryptophan changes. Tryptophan is a precursor to serotonin, therefore, following an increase in tryptophan content in the central nervous system, the synthesis of serotonin increases. Eating can be a kind of modulator of serotonin levels in the central nervous system; an increase in its synthesis associated with the absorption of carbohydrate foods simultaneously leads to an increase in the feeling of satiety and a decrease in depressive symptoms. Thus, it was clearly shown that bulimia and depression have common biochemical pathogenetic mechanisms - serotonin deficiency.

The results of these studies provided the basis for the use of antidepressants with selective serotonergic action for the treatment of depression accompanied by bulimia and obesity with disordered eating behavior. The main selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor is fluoxetine, or Prozac, which is both an antidepressant and anorexigenic drug. Indications for its use in obesity are combinations with emotional eating behavior, depression, chronic pain syndromes, and panic attacks.

Consequences of the disease

The consequences of this disease can be severe. Up to 20% of people with anorexia eventually die, making it the most fatal illness among mental illnesses.

First of all, human bones suffer from exhaustion. The fact is that the syndrome often develops in adolescence, when the bones have not yet fully formed. They may not be able to support body weight in the future if the person gains weight.

The most dangerous consequence of the disease is disruption of the heart.

Due to starvation, muscles atrophy, and the heart suffers from this. Blood pressure decreases and pulse weakens. Such changes can trigger cardiac arrest.

When the body does not have enough glucose, energy reserves are depleted. Subsequently, the body has to look for other sources of energy. Inside a person, these are proteins and fats, which the body begins to feed on. This leads to the formation of a lot of ammonia and acetone during the breakdown of protein and fat cells. They poison the human body.

In addition, as a result of fasting, cortisol, a stress hormone, is produced. Not only the nervous system, but also the immune forces are on the verge. The patient's body can no longer fight viruses or bacteria.

Retired women are at risk for anorexia

Anorexia has traditionally been associated with teenagers and young adults, but the eating disorder is now increasingly common in women of retirement age. They also feel the pressure of the cult of thinness.

Until the age of 54, Englishwoman Margaret Bradley (pictured) never bothered herself with diets. The naturally slim mother of two simply preferred healthy food and regular visits to the gym. This allowed me to look 10 years younger than my age. But at 54, Margaret suddenly decided that with age she would soon lose her thin figure. And I decided to lose a few kilograms after Christmas, so as not to worry later.

She limited the number of calories to 1,250 per day, and when this did not give a quick effect, then to 1,000 (half the recommended amount for women). A year later, despite the rapid weight loss, the woman continued to lose weight, eating only salads and vegetables. The desire to be even slimmer turned out to be stronger than common sense. This eventually led to anorexia .

Over the past 11 years, the incidence of anorexia among women has increased by 42%. In the minds of most people, aspiring models, high school students and girls aged 25-30 are anorexic. But according to statistics, 78% of deaths from anorexia occur in women with an average age of 69 years!

For older women, the impact of this eating disorder on the body is much more dangerous than for teenagers. By this age, protective forces weaken, chronic diseases and age-related changes in the functioning of the heart and other important organs appear. So such severe stress as anorexia often leads to death.

Margaret Bradley was forced to leave her job due to poor health. Now she doesn’t even have the opportunity to sit with her grandchildren - she is hampered by constant weakness. She was recently hospitalized for two weeks to receive intravenous feeding. Today she is undergoing intensive treatment for anorexia. The doctor told her that Margaret had only lost 2-3 kilograms before her death.

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Treatment of anorexia

In order to cure anorexia, it is necessary to use complex therapy.

It includes:

• taking medications;
• nutrition correction;
• psychotherapy.

In this case, pharmacology is an additional method of treating anorexia. Medicines are used to correct mental disorders and also to increase appetite. Some prescriptions imply the exclusion of relapses of the disease.

Early stages of the disease are usually treated on an outpatient basis. As for advanced stages, such a patient is hospitalized.

First of all, helping the patient is to restore his normal body weight and normalize metabolic processes.

In a hospital setting, patients must follow a diet, for which they are encouraged to go for walks and meet with relatives. This technique is quite effective, but it may not lead to a positive result if the case of the disease is severe.

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The following medications may be prescribed to treat anorexia:

• neuroleptics;
• antidepressants;
• drugs that improve appetite (Frenolone, Elenium);
• soothing;
• vitamin complexes that include calcium, iron, vitamin B12 and vitamin C.

Normalizing weight requires a gradual increase in food intake. Nutrition programs have been developed specifically for this purpose to help cope with the problem without harming the digestive system.

In the early stages of the disease, patients are prescribed psychotherapy. Conversations with a psychologist allow a person to treat himself as an individual and not pay too much attention to his weight. There is a reassessment of life priorities and ideals.

Some patients require the help of a psychotherapist in order to improve family relationships. This is one of the types of therapy that allows you to cure anorexia completely in the early stages or speed up the recovery process if the disease is advanced.

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Why is anorexia dangerous in old age?

Along with weight loss and a decrease in the amount of food consumed, various disruptions occur in the hormonal and immune systems, and in breathing. Muscle mass decreases, weakness and fatigue occur. Sometimes it’s even difficult for pensioners to just get out of bed in the morning.

Hypoalbuminemia joins this set. The disease occurs against the background of a decrease in albumin in the blood, which can lead to damage to various tissues and organs.

If an elderly person develops an illness due to infection or exposure to a virus, it will be extremely difficult to endure it. Against the background of anorexia, the immune system will not be able to give a worthy rebuff to the “enemies”.

Treatment of illness at home

Treatment of anorexia with traditional methods involves the use of herbal decoctions. The main task is to stimulate appetite and calm the patient’s nervous system.

To do this, use the following means:

• nettle decoction;
• dandelion roots;
• tea with lemon balm or mint;
• decoction of rowan fruits.

At home, treatment of anorexia involves not only dietary nutrition. In addition, the support of loved ones is important for the patient. It consists of communicating with the patient every day, helping him to understand the problem and the need for recovery.

It is necessary not only to control the patient’s behavior, but also to find common activities that will help distract from negative thoughts. To get completely healthy, it is important to eat right for several months. Any fasting days to correct your shape or refusal to eat can be harmful and even aggravate the disease.

Anorexia disease - types of anorexia

When suffering from anorexia, which can be caused by various factors, experts distinguish the following forms :

• Mental anorexia occurs with mental disorders that are accompanied by loss of hunger. For example, with schizophrenia, paranoia or advanced stages of depression. In addition, it can appear after the use of psychotropic substances, for example, prolonged use of alcohol.
• Symptomatic anorexia is only a symptom of a serious physical illness. For example, for diseases of the lungs, stomach and intestines, hormonal system and gynecological disorders. Thus, refusal to eat during acute respiratory infections of moderate severity or alcohol intoxication occurs due to special adaptive reactions of the body, which focuses energy on treatment, and not on digesting foods.
• Anorexia nervosa (psychological) is similar to mental anorexia only in name. The first difference is that the patient deliberately limits himself in food and is afraid of gaining weight by more than 15%. The second difference can be considered a disturbed perception of one’s own body.
• Drug-induced anorexia occurs as a result of exceeding the dose of an antidepressant, anorectic substance or psychostimulant.

Recovery period

To restore the body after anorexia, you should stay in bed. The body is greatly weakened by exhaustion, so it needs rest. The recovery period will last as long as the body weakens, and temporary relief can be deceptive.

You should not neglect nutrition during recovery. During this period, you need to eat more often, up to 6 times a day, and eat high-calorie foods. If you follow all the doctor’s instructions, you can gain up to 3 kilograms within a month.

Many patients are assigned to groups that provide psychological assistance. Such support helps to cope not only with the consequences of the disease, but also with its causes, which is very important for preventing a relapse of the disease.

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During the recovery period, the main task is to learn how to treat your body and nutrition correctly. It is also important to learn to perceive your appearance.

In many ways, the results depend on the behavior of the relatives who surround the patient. Therefore, for a successful recovery, they should also receive consultation from a psychologist in order to behave correctly with the patient in the future.

Treatment

Refusal of food provokes a deep pathological disturbance of homeostasis. Symptoms not only of exhaustion appear, but also of acute heart failure. The first aid in this case is:

• correction of ionic and water-electrolyte balance;
• taking mineral and vitamin complexes;
• preparation of high-calorie meals;
• parenteral administration of nutrients.

All these methods help to maintain only the physical condition of the patient, but the cause of anorexia is not treated. When restoring normal body weight and metabolism, it is important to conduct psychotherapy in parallel.

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General treatment of anorexia comes down to methods such as:

• drug therapy;
• psychotherapy;
• physiotherapeutic treatment;
• hormone therapy (in rare cases).

As a rule, treatment is carried out at home in compliance with all doctor’s recommendations. However, in severe cases, the patient needs hospitalization. The main goal of treatment is to improve the somatic condition and return to normal body weight.

Important! During the treatment period, the care and support of loved ones is important to the patient. It is necessary to encourage the patient to return to their previous body weight in any way, but avoid sweets.

Medication

Normalizing the functions of internal organs, increasing body weight and reducing nervous excitement are the main goals of drug treatment. The selection of medications should be carried out by multidisciplinary doctors: cardiologists, endocrinologists and gastroenterologists.

Treatment with medications lasts for a month. During this time, the patient must remain in bed and do a minimum of physical activity. Proper diet plays an important role in recovery. Depending on body weight and body characteristics, a course of dietary nutrition of 500 calories is prescribed, which is divided into 6 servings. Food should be:

• easily digestible;
• high-calorie;
• predominantly liquid or semi-liquid;
• warm.

In a month, an anorectic person should gain up to 4-6 kg of weight.

Important! Overfeeding a patient with anorexia is extremely dangerous. A sharp increase in calories can lead to overload of the gastrointestinal tract.

In order to avoid artificial vomiting and overcome food refusal, the following is prescribed:

• subcutaneous administration of atropine;
• intramuscular injection of insulin (dosage 4 units);
• intravenous injections of 40% glucose solution and insulin.

The patient should drink at least 2 liters of fluid daily, including herbal teas.

Psychological

This is a difficult stage in the treatment of anorexia. It is not so easy to convince a patient that he has no defects in appearance. During this period, there is a need to find a professional psychotherapist. The main tasks of the doctor in the treatment of anorexia are:

• correction of “eating behavior”;
• conducting behavioral psychotherapy;
• family therapy (drawing up role-playing stories in the family and establishing dialogue with parents, peers, etc.);
• analysis of conflicts (intrafamily, social, interpersonal);
• search for motivating factors;
• carrying out special exercises to solve psychosocial issues;
• training in relaxation techniques.

Psychological treatment lasts up to 9 weeks. Sedatives such as seduxen and tazepam are often added to it. Sometimes specialists also resort to hypnosis. As soon as positive changes have begun in the treatment of anorexia, the patient is gradually transferred to a normal diet and preventive measures are carried out.

The nuances of treating anorexia in adolescents

In order to help the child cope with the problem, parents should adhere to the following recommendations:

• Be a role model for your child by adhering to a healthy lifestyle;
• maintain your figure through sports;
• do not criticize the child’s appearance and your own;
• get advice from a psychologist;
• do not intimidate the child or show anger towards him;
• increase his self-esteem.

Having noticed the first signs of anorexia in a child, parents should immediately seek help from a doctor. Manifestations such as weight loss, as well as refusal of food that the child previously ate with pleasure should be alarming. Teenagers may refuse to eat, citing a lack of appetite or the fact that they had previously eaten a lot.

If a teenager is very concerned about diets and criticizes his body, then this should also alert parents. He may react sharply to comments about food or criticism.

Senile anorexia for no apparent reason

There are very real and understandable reasons why a pensioner may find himself “in the grip” of anorexia. But there are cases (and there are many of them!) in which rapid weight loss occurs purposefully, that is, at the request of the patient himself. He is sure that he is overweight and wants to lose it at any cost. To do this, he refuses food in every possible way.

Such disorders are often found among those who have exhausted themselves with diets all their lives, strived to look better and no longer noticed any limits. This is a psychological problem, the solution to which is not enough to simply diversify the menu or have breakfast together every morning. You can’t do this without the help of a nutritionist, psychologist and psychotherapist. It is necessary to convey to the pensioner that sacrificing one’s health for the sake of aesthetics, especially at that age, is unwise and very dangerous.

It is important to change the distorted perception of your own image, find the reasons and eliminate them. As a rule, attempts to deliberately reduce your weight are associated with low self-esteem, lack of demand and loneliness. It is with them that the painstaking work lies ahead.

How to avoid relapse

To avoid relapse of the disease, the patient should adhere to the following rules:

• take medications in accordance with your doctor’s recommendations;
• do not follow diets, but adhere to the principles of proper nutrition;
• eat small portions and eat frequently;
• do not watch fashion shows and do not compare yourself with models;
• pamper yourself not with food, but with other pleasant things;
• communicate with loved ones;
• avoid stress;
• do what you love.

Anorexia - causes, symptoms, treatment, consequences

In the last decade, anorexia has become a new fashion for modern youth. The idea of ​​an ideal figure has been formed in the minds of millions of people thanks to photographs of skinny models in glossy magazines. Girls in the age category from 12 to 18, less often up to 25 years old, are especially susceptible to this influence. To meet the ideal, they torture themselves with diets and refuse food, getting closer to their goal every day. And at one point they can no longer stop.

Frequent victims of this debilitating disease are models and stars. For example, the French actress and model Isabelle Caro suffered from this disease from the age of 13. She became famous all over the world after participating in the “No Anorexia” advertising campaign. Social advertising promoted a healthy lifestyle in order to prevent the death of many girls who drive themselves to exhaustion. The publication of a photo of a model suffering from this terrible disease caused a public outcry and numerous discussions in the press.

The fashion for anorexia is gaining momentum and has reached epidemic proportions. Girls unite in communities, promote exhaustion of the body as a way of existence, without realizing the consequences. Perhaps they were not explained that this disease is very serious and this is not a game at all, but a long road to the cemetery.

Anorexia concept

Anorexia nervosa is a psychological disease that is accompanied by a disorder in food consumption. This disease is characterized by intense weight loss associated with an uncontrollable fear of obesity, a distorted idea of ​​one’s own appearance, which leads to profound disturbances in the body’s metabolic processes. Girls who are not happy with their figure and are on the verge of illness are terrified of getting fat; even a glass of water can threaten their “ideal” figure. Patients with anorexia can be compared to alcoholics and drug addicts - none of them realize the severity of the disease and its consequences.

As a rule, women are more likely to think about the need to lose excess weight than men. According to statistics, 1% of women and 0.2% of men suffer from anorexia. According to medical data, 40% of patients recover, 30% experience improvement, 24% have a chronic disease, and 6% die.

Causes of anorexia

One of the main social informants in many countries around the world is the media. Television, glossy magazines, cinema, advertising, and the Internet are the main sources of fashion for thinness and stereotypes about the ideal figure. Teenagers are susceptible to the information they receive, which leads to a distorted vision of the world. As a result, dissatisfaction with one's own body appears, concerns about weight and, as a result, anorexia nervosa develops.

Girls who frequently read glamorous fashion magazines, articles about diets and weight loss-related issues are six times more likely to engage in weight loss practices and seven times more likely to engage in extreme unhealthy weight control. Women who frequently view photos of models have a decreased self-esteem, which increases the likelihood of wanting to improve themselves through exercise and various diets.

One of the psychological reasons for the development of anorexia is lack of self-acceptance. Most often, this is typical for teenage girls aged 12 - 16 years. They begin to worry about their appearance. The desire to please boys, to be accepted in the company of more beautiful friends, to become a model, and so on, pushes teenagers to take drastic measures.

The second reason is non-acceptance of parents. A protracted conflict with the mother or father, psychological pressure, hidden resentment, careless statements about appearance cause complexes and self-doubt in the child. As a result, the development of anorexia nervosa.

Anorexia begins gradually. Dissatisfaction with one's own reflection in the mirror gradually develops into a persistent belief that one is overweight. Thoughts arise about the need to correct the figure and fight extra pounds. Patients with anorexia choose several methods to combat obesity: they refuse to eat, try to cleanse the body of food (induce vomiting, take laxatives, give an enema).

At first, when the first positive result is achieved, the mood improves, a feeling of lightness and a feeling of fitness comes. Negative changes and signs of anorexia in the body are not noticed - hair loss and dullness, peeling skin, sallow complexion, thin brittle nails.

Then, active physical activity is added to the persistent restriction in food intake. The already exhausted body becomes even more exhausted. Pathological fatigue and drowsiness occur.

After just 1-1.5 years of active weight loss, patients look exhausted, with haggard features and sunken eyes. If you do not seek medical help at this stage of the development of anorexia, the likelihood of death reaches a maximum.

Research has shown that initial weight loss may be a trigger for the development of anorexia nervosa due to genetic predisposition, possible parasitic infections, side effects of medications and surgery.

Symptoms of anorexia

The most obvious sign of anorexia is critical weight loss, close to exhaustion. Initially, anorexics refuse to eat, citing satiety or malaise. At the same time, they can talk for hours about food, caloric content of foods and diets - food completely covers all thoughts. Further more. Weakness, fatigue, and possible fainting appear. They are constantly cold - due to lack of energy, the body cannot warm up.

Patients with anorexia are characterized by hostility, depression, secrecy, and increased anxiety. The body tries to make up for the lack of vitamins and minerals from secondary organs, as a result - dull hair, brittle nails, gray skin tone, puffy face.

As a result of fasting, women develop amenorrhea - the absence of three consecutive menstrual cycles, and childbearing becomes an acute problem for them. With low weight, early menopause may occur.

Anorexics often deny that they have any eating disorders. And attempts by relatives to feed the patient cause a violent reaction from him.

Anorexia in adolescents

Children cannot be aware of their actions and do not understand what is happening to them. However, they believe that with every kilogram they lose, they become more and more beautiful. And suddenly they realize that they can no longer stop. This is the result of psychological abnormalities. This is anorexia in full bloom.

Teenagers begin to share portions, avoid family dinners together, and feed their portions to younger brothers and sisters and animals. Having become more sophisticated about the reasons for refusing food, they begin to lie about everything else.

Parents should know their child's habits and be wary of changes in behavior. It is important to talk with your children, explain to them what beauty, healthy eating, healthy habits are. At the same time, be careful, since excessive edification and imposing your own criteria on a child can have the opposite effect.

It is necessary to listen to your child’s ideas about beauty, about the world, what he dreams of and what he strives for. And from this, draw appropriate conclusions and make small adjustments so that the child cannot bring himself to a state of anorexia. Before an important conversation, it is better for parents to talk to specialists who can help give advice. How to conduct a conversation correctly and not get lost in emotions. Parents are afraid of what might happen next. Don't shout or slam the door - it won't help. During the fasting period, teenagers become more sensitive and are ready to cry for any reason.

First of all, parents need to pay attention to themselves - whether they are eating right and playing sports. Encourage children to do things together. Show that you don’t have to give up food if you want to lose weight. You can go to the gym, go for a run, visit the pool. Offer alternative options, without compromising your psyche and health.

Often children say that they are not accepted in the team, they have no friends. In this situation, parents can organize some kind of party or event to bring them closer to their peers and create communication for the child.

Today, the problem of anorexia is growing. If a teenager is in a state of endless mood swings, irritability and lack of acceptance of the world around him, himself, his life and everyone around him, parents must assess the situation and take some action. When the first warning signs appear, it is necessary to urgently contact specialists, in particular a psychologist. Help will come!

Diagnosis of anorexia

The initial diagnosis should be made by a competent healthcare professional. There are a number of diseases, such as viral infections, hormonal imbalances, and brain tumors, that can mimic psychiatric disorders, including anorexia nervosa.

The psychiatrist conducts a preliminary conversation with the patient, during which he draws attention to the following aspects:

1. the patient’s body weight is constantly decreasing and reaches a level 15% below ideal weight;
2. weight loss is provoked by the patient himself by refusing to eat;
3. obsession with losing excess weight due to a distorted perception of one’s own body;
4. amenorrhea in women.

Clinical studies when diagnosing anorexia are necessary to determine the extent of damage to internal organs due to fasting. These include a general analysis of urine and blood, an analysis for the presence of antibodies to viruses and bacteria, specific tests for the quality of functioning of the liver and kidneys, a test for glucose tolerance, the presence of nitrogen in urea and blood, ultrasound of internal organs and others.

To make a correct diagnosis, it is necessary to analyze the obtained clinical and psychological data. Comorbidities may influence the severity of eating disorder symptoms. For example, distinguishing between the diagnoses of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and eating disorder without additional abnormalities is often difficult to make because there is symptomatic overlap between patients. It would seem that minor changes in the general behavior of the patient can change the diagnosis.

Treatment of anorexia

Anorexia is not easy to get rid of. This is a psychological disease that torments its victim even in sleep. Patients cease to control their feelings and actions, their own fears drive them into a corner and doom them to loneliness. Anorexia is a terrible disease that can take years to cure.

Denial of the disease in anorexics delays the visit to the doctor, so relatives have to force the patient to see a psychotherapist. Since the disease is psychological, clinics are developing behavioral therapy programs, combining them with other types of psychological assistance.

First, the physical condition of the body is restored. If an anorexic person is admitted to the hospital in critical condition, nutrition is provided through an IV to stabilize the condition. When the crisis passes, the patient is gradually introduced to nutrition. First, give food in small portions, monitor the patient for 2 hours after eating so that he does not vomit. If an anorexic refuses to eat, he is offered special mixtures. Patients usually do not object to drinking liquids or liquid foods.

People suffering from anorexia have extremely high blood levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin, which signals the physiological desire to consume food. A high level of ghrelin suggests that the body's hunger urge has been suppressed and ignored. However, one small, simple study found that administering intravenous ghrelin to patients with anorexia increased their food intake by 12 to 36%.

After normalization of nutrition and gradual weight gain, doctors move on to treating the patient’s psychological state. Depending on the patient’s condition, he may be prescribed antidepressants, which help relieve anxiety and fear and improve his mood.

It is important not to focus the patient's attention on food. Force-feeding and a strict regime can backfire. Some experts suggest using the so-called reward method. A kind of contract is concluded with the patient - for a certain weight gain per day, he receives some kind of reward (for example, he is allowed to leave the ward for a while). If the patient does not gain weight, the conditions are reviewed. It is important that the choice of the desired reward remains with the patient.

To stabilize the psychological state of a patient with anorexia, psychoanalysis is used. As a result of psychoanalytic treatment, the underlying reasons for refusal to eat are revealed. The task of the psychotherapist is to help the patient get to the bottom of the reasons for his refusal to eat and jointly develop ways to solve the problem. Communication with the patient is aimed at changing his self-perception and eradicating psychological deviations.

Good results are obtained by keeping daily records indicating the amount of food taken, the type of food eaten, the time of absorption of food and a description of the environment in which the food was taken.

Family psychotherapy brings positive results. Most often used when the patient is under 18 years of age. In this case, family therapy is more successful than individual therapy.

In various forms of family therapy and anorexia treatment, parents visit a psychotherapist together with the teenager, or separately. In any case, the main points of such treatment are similar: the family is seen as a resource for treatment; parents are given instructions under which they can take control of their child’s regular nutrition; behavioral programs are being developed to implement adolescent weight gain, etc. When the child’s nutrition becomes regular and weight is gradually restored, the psychotherapeutic effect expands the area of ​​influence - by searching for problems of interaction in the family, conflicts between fathers and children are resolved. Family therapy allows recovery for 90% of patients with anorexia nervosa.

An unconventional treatment method is yoga. Treatment showed that eating disorder symptoms, including food preoccupation, decreased after each session.

According to studies, relapses of the disease are possible during the first year after the patient returns from inpatient conditions, and occurs in 40% of patients with anorexia. Behavioral as well as pharmacological therapy can be provided to prevent relapse.

Consequences of anorexia

When a person goes on a hunger strike, he has no idea what harm he is causing to the body. Fasting is not a salvation, but a real killer.

Depending on the severity of the disease and the duration of fasting, various health consequences are possible. Girls who refuse to eat will experience metabolic disorders, problems with the liver, kidneys, skin, hair, and nails. The victim of anorexia will be an organism that will be extremely difficult to restore after such stress.

Glucose is the body's source of energy. During fasting, carbohydrate stores are not replenished, and when glucose runs out, the body begins to look for alternative sources of energy. The available sources within us are proteins and fats. As a result of the destruction of proteins, a large amount of ammonia is formed in the body of a starving person, including those with anorexia; when fats are destroyed, acetone is formed. The breakdown products of proteins and fats accumulate in the body, and with each “hungry” day, the smell of acetone from the body and from the mouth intensifies. This toxic liquid begins to poison the body.

In “economy” mode, the body produces the stress hormone cartisol – the nervous system is on the verge of breakdown, and the immune system is impaired. Immune strength is so reduced that the body is unable to fight either viruses or bacteria.

With anorexia, the barrier function of the liver decreases. As soon as a person stops consuming food, the liver begins to work twice as hard and produce additional fat as a source of its own energy. Fat accumulates in the liver, as a result of which it increases in size, fatty liver degeneration occurs, which is manifested by nausea, dizziness, and apathy.

The brain, with such a serious illness as anorexia, will remind itself of itself with headaches that can last for a year. Pain in the right hypochondrium as a result of fatty hepatosis, impaired concentration, weakened memory. Black circles under the eyes, pale skin, dryness and flaking, dull split ends, peeling nails - all this is the result of starvation, lack of vitamins A, D, E.

Decreased potassium levels in the blood lead to cardiac arrhythmias, constipation, muscle damage, fatigue, and even paralysis.

Lack of calcium in the body provokes a decrease in bone mass. This is especially critical for the young, not fully formed body of adolescents. The processes of growth and puberty slow down. In the early stages of treatment, these processes are reversible.

An insufficient amount of nutrients causes blood anemia; as a result of low hemoglobin content, oxygen “starvation” of cells occurs.

The worst consequence is death. Of all mental disorders, anorexia has the highest mortality rate.

Examples of deadly statistics: Anna Caroline Rosten, a Brazilian model, died of anorexia at a young age (21 years old) weighing 39 kg; Uruguayan model Lucel Ramos died of a heart attack at the age of 22; at the time of her death, she weighed 44 kg with a height of 175 cm.

Finally, I would like to say, if you are unhappy with yourself, you think that you have a lot of extra centimeters and kilograms, do not despair. The best way to correct everything would be to limit flour products and sugar, include various cereals in your diet, more vegetables and, of course, exercise, or simply try to lead an active lifestyle. By going on strict diets, you can either deplete your body to the point of anorexia, or your body will play a very bad joke on you. Constantly starving, the body will quickly get tired of your bullying and, during the next diet, it will begin to put aside “for later,” that is, into adipose tissue, everything that you eat. And this will cause your weight to double or even triple. So think about whether you need this kind of problem.

We wish you to always remain attractive, no matter how much you weigh.

Be healthy!